Wednesday, June 13, 2007

EVERY DAY'S A NEW DAY,,,

....for the left to work on the defeat of the US in Iraq and in the war on Islamic fundamentalism. It's a tough job to skew reality and distort the truth, but hey! Somebody's gotta do it...and the political left has all the necessary moral and intellectual hollowness to do the job.

Let's take as our first example this op-ed from the LA Times, who in delighted anticipation of the imminent American defeat in Iraq, have coined a new diagnosis. No one is suffering from it as yet; but with any luck, anyone with neocon tendencies will soon be incapacitated by it:

The endgame in Iraq is now clear, in outline if not detail, and it appears that the heavily favored United States will be upset. Once support for a war is lost, it is gone for good; there is no example of a modern democracy having changed its mind once it turned against a war. So we ought to start coming to grips with the meaning of losing in Iraq.

The consequences for the national psyche are likely to be profound, throwing American politics into a downward spiral of bitter recriminations the likes of which it has not seen in a generation. It will be a wedge that politicians will exploit for their benefit, proving yet again that politics is the eternal enemy of strategy. The Vietnam syndrome divided this country for decades; the Iraq syndrome will be no different.

The battle for interpretation has already begun, with fingers of blame pointed in all directions in hastily written memoirs. The war's supporters have staked out their position quite clearly: Attacking Iraq was strategically sound but operationally flawed. Key decisions on troop levels, de-Baathification, the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the like doomed what otherwise would have been a glorious war.

The American people seem to understand, however — and historians will certainly agree — that the war itself was a catastrophic mistake.

Wishful thinking anyone? The piece practically salivates at the prospect of "history" judging the Iraq war as a "catastrophic mistake". That is clearly open to debate since both the battle of Iraq and the greater war on terror are still works in progress.

And there is something else that needs to be considered when discussing lightheartedly mocking those who might have some angst at the possibility of a defeat on the ground (as opposed to in the op-ed columns of leftist rags like the Times) : WE MUST NOT LOSE THIS BATTLE IN IRAQ BECAUSE OF THE CATASTROPHIC CONSEQUENCE THAT WILL RESULT--in Iraq, in the Middle East and in the greater war against the Islamofascists.

I shudder to think what history will record about the pathetic appeasers and enablers of the left who lacked both the moral courage and physical stamina to stand against the Nazis of our generation. I don't know why I should be surprised at their betrayal of the the good. It is all in a days work for them.

There are several differences between Iraq and Vietnam. The first is that Iraq is a strategic country in the oil-rich Persian Gulf from which ultimate withdrawal is impossible. A redeployment perhaps, but a withdrawal no. The second is that unlike Vietnam, whose NVA had neither the inclination nor the capability to follow withdrawing American troops home, al-Qaeda already has. It proved that capability on September 11, 2001. The third is that unlike the Cold War, which consisted of proxy rivalries outside the homelands of the US and the USSR, the battlefield this time will be as close as Fort Dix or the JFK Airport.

The battle for "political interpretation", far from being dreaded by the Left, is probably anticipated with great eagerness. Here at last is the opportunity to round up the remaining survivors of the Vietnam War syndrome for final annihilation. After the hoped-for Iraq War syndrome, the US will finally be remolded. Into what the reader may imagine.

But only by portraying the domestic political component of the War on Terror as "divisive" can the Left proceed to launch it anyway. Without of course the intellectual opposition that might cause fractious debate. But if the debate so far has had any object whatsoever, it has been to promote division anyway. And so it will continue. At all events it is unlikely, now that the Internet has broadened the policy forum, that anyone will be given the chance to politically interpret recent events without opposition. But the main rebuttals will come, not from neo-conservatives, whoever they may be, but from events. The book will not close with Iraq, any more than the war on fascism closed with the Spanish civil war.

The problem with declaring an Iraq War syndrome is precisely that the war isn't with Iraq, and hence makes about as much sense as declaring a post-Guadalcanal War syndrome.

Usually, the Left's position is that the terrorism problem is grossly overstated. The Justice Department, it is claimed, has vastly inflated its terrorism prosecution numbers both to heighten our sense of fear and to appear to be doing something meaningful to protect us....

So why now, all of a sudden, is one of the leading "progressive" organizations, HRW, suggesting that Justice has actually racked up "hundreds" of successful prosecutions? Because of yesterday's Fourth Circuit decision in the al-Marri enemy-combatant case (which I write about, here). By a 2-1 ruling, the court held that an alien terrorist who is lawfully in the United States may not be held without trial as an enemy combatant. He must, the court said, be handed over to the civilian courts for trial, deported or released — which, of course, means either giving jihadists lavish discovery of our intelligence while the war is going on, or letting them go to rejoin the jihad.

You see? Yesterday, the Left wanted to argue that terrorism prosecutions almost never happen, so DOJ's numbers were inflated and there is no real threat to national security. Today, to defend the al-Marri decision, they want to argue that terrorism trials in the civilian courts happen all the time with no harm to national security, so DOJ's doing a bang-up job and its numbers are just outstanding.

You gotta hand it to these guys. There's always an answer for everything when every day is a new day that wipes the slate clean.

Now, add this accusation by the UN that America is to blame for (get ready to LOL) the the failure of the UN to achieve peace in the Middle East; and stir in the latest Palestinian murderfest between Hamas and Fatah, those "democratically" elected leaders of the dysfunctional terrorists who run things there, and you have identified all the anchors of the postmodern intellect, whose goal was and always shall be to travel the shortest distance between reality and delusion.

Debunk them all you want; it doesn't matter! Postmodernism means never having to say you're sorry! It means that you never let reason or facts stand in the way of any argument that helps destroy the real enemy (you know who they mean) !

Yes, every day's a new day to wipe the slate clean and start the irrationality all over again.